Radicalizing Rural America

MSNBC host Joy Reid caused a stir a while ago calling rural Americans a core threat to democracy, complaining about their disproportionate power over the urban majority and demanding an end to the Electoral College voting system.

Yet Reid isn’t the only one to cast a jaundiced eye in the direction of the rustic states with Americans never this divided since the Civil War.

This polarization pits the East and West Coasts against conservative Middle America and the Southern states.

Super-rich, high-tech Silicon Valley lead the charge with one founder of a tech start-up saying; no educated person wants to live in a shithole with stupid people.

Her rant didn’t end there as she elaborated; who are violent, racist, and/or misogynistic before closing down her public twitter feed.

Not wanting to get into the finer points of the US Electoral College System I’ll just say this, those on the left pushing for the abolishment of the Electoral College regard the US as a one-man-one-vote democracy with those opposed maintaining it was designed as a Constitutional Republic with built-in protections for the less populous but greater number of rural states against the fewer number of densely populated urban ones.

But the times are-a changing with rebellion in the air and you can be sure not everyone in the South or Heartland is conservative.

Now meet the far left Militia group with the oddball name of Redneck Revolt that’s challenging stereotypes and making waves.

They promote PDF’s endorsing armed struggle, have a 36 page mini manual titled the Urban Guerrilla with instructions on how to conduct warfare in US cities, subdivided into sections like sabotage, kidnapping, executions, armed propaganda and terrorism according to the Far Left Watch investigation group.

Woolly liberals these guys ain’t and they’ll tell you as much with one saying; if you keep going further left, eventually, you’ll go so far left to get back your guns.

They say they’re dedicated to fighting fascism but in reality they sound more like the American version of the Soviet Bolsheviks.

Last year a professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, charged with assaulting the Editor in Chief of Big League Politics was profiled as a leader of Redneck Revolt.

And just recently an activist with the John Brown Gun Club, affiliated to Redneck Revolt was charged with Felony Harassment after photographed stalking a right wing activist while brandishing a firearm.

Redneck Revolt is a far left urban guerrilla movement radicalizing and mobilizing conservative rural communities in the march to a workers revolution.

Founded in 2009 Redneck was an offshoot of the John Brown Gun Club, founded in 2004 in Kansas.

It fizzled out from 2011 to 2015 re-emerging in 2016 with the election of Donald Trump.

One of the group’s founder’s an environmentalist named Mike, a self-described Marxist Leninist, was born in conservative Suffolk County in Long Island, New York where in his own words he grew up ‘dirt poor’

He wanted to connect with like-minded radicals so he posted on a face-book page called ‘Long Island Socialists’ the administrator then touched base with him and so the Redneck Revolution was born.

Basically Redneck Revolt is pushing for an end to capitalism through the unification of the working class across the board.

It draws inspiration from the Young Patriot Organization (YPO) a group of white workers in Chicago who sixty years ago defended the rights of people of all races.

They eventually formed part of the Rainbow coalition with the Black Panthers producing political leaders such as the like of Jesse Jackson.

In support of these aims the organization focuses on encouraging poor, rural white people in 38 different locations around the country to rally in support of people of color.

Mike’s Suffolk County branch hosts potluck dinners with neighboring leftist organizations and protests prison conditions with Black Lives Matter.

From humble beginnings in Colorado and Kansas, the group has grown to nearly 40 branches nationwide.

Members participate in everything from creating community gardens to provide food security for the poor also participating in counter-protests at right-wing rallies.

New members are recruited at conservative rallies in a process known as counter-recruiting.

Recruits are also found in traditionally white spaces like NASCAR races and gun shows.

Leaders of the movement say they support a lot of charitable organizations like Food not Bombs and causes like organizing drives to collect coats for the homeless distributing the goods themselves rather than handing the job to charities.

But what makes this leftist group different is their support of firearms.

While admitting this trait makes liberals nervous they point to their mission statement declaring organizing people also requires organizing a defense of their communities.

They hope to reclaim the name redneck from its current derogatory meaning back to its original description of outdoor workers with perpetual sunburn.

But their devotion to ‘Red’ ideology makes the sentiment somewhat disingenuous.

Keen to distance Redneck from Antifa, a leader explained the differences in tactics; we do everything within the law, unlike Antifa’s destruction of property, covering their faces in black bloc and occasionally beating up Nazi’s on the streets.

Redneck is different from Antifa in that the movement views itself an above ground militant formation rather than an underground one.

Granted poverty’s one big reason radicalization is making inroads in rural communities.

One Redneck leader recalled how he once believed in the American dream while growing up in poverty, but despite working a 65 hour week he has nothing to show for it and if not for his in-laws he’d be homeless.

One of the youngest members explained how he’d dropped out of college when the costs became too much and made a living stocking liquor stores then selling rare silver coins.

It’s obvious that for millennials a lack of financial security and dim future prospects is fueling the rise of communism, demonstrated by the considerable political support enjoyed by Bernie Sanders, who’s endorsed 100% by Redneck Revolt.

Poverty that can be blamed on the introduction of NAFTA in the Nineteen Eighties, when a giant sucking sound signaled manufacturing jobs exiting the country, to paraphrase Ross Perot, the Independent presidential candidate and U.S. business man who fought against it.

Poverty’s not the only reason for the mushrooming of far left movements obviously; the current ‘cold war’s intensifying the battle between the far left and far right, with mainstream media continually harping on about the fascist threat the country faces.

Worse still the Trump Administration and its base are painted with the Nazi brush at every turn to demonize them for political advantage.

The strategy of a movement like Redneck Revolt is to turn the tide so to speak, cutting into the traditionally conservative rural vote to sway opinions in a three hundred and sixty degree revolutionary turn.

The group is also unlikely to be a grassroots one and probably has Intel connections somewhere along the line.

DEVELOPING: Nevada’s State Senate passes bill to give Electoral votes to National Popular vote winner. Should the Governor sign the bill, his state will have moved the National Popular Vote movement six votes closer to effectively nullifying the Electoral College